The funny thing is my friends with kids all use netflix more than cable with the kids.... namely because they don't care about watching the newest episodes so netflix's vast collection of older kids shows works out better.
And what you are wanting to do is exactly what I am doing.... dropped down to Dish America until next September. But part of the problem here is the ridiculous equipment fees. I have a 3 room hopper/joey system and the equipment fees alone add $25 to my bill each month which imo is the real issue with cable/sat tv pricing, the programming costs really aren't that bad. But you can't easily put the equipment on hold for the summer months.... made even worse because every other service (netflix, hulu, google play, aereo, simple.tv) do not charge for each additional tv I have. Was really hoping the virtual joey would be done in a similar way but sadly that doesn't look to be the case.